Night Tiger

Smart, vivacious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother's Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been hoping for. Across town, 11-year-old houseboy Ren is on a mission of his own, racing to fulfill his former master's dying wish: that Ren find the man's severed finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ji Lin and Ren are pulled together in ways they couldn't have imagined, as their increasingly dangerous paths lead them from lush plantations, to hospital storage rooms, to a ghostly dreamscape. The Night Tiger draws us into a world of servants and masters, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzlingly ambitious, propulsive novel is the intimate coming of age of a boy and a girl, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.